Maisie turned this information over and over. If Simon was concerned about money, but seemed to be interested in her and not someone like Beanie . . .
“He might like that you’re clever, you know,” Beanie said. “He’s a funny one that way. Or he hopes to shock the family, of course. Shocking one’s family is quite ‘the fad’ these days. This year’s pea-shooting. Ah, here’s for me, cheerio.”
Beanie was halfway down the corridor when Maisie shouted after her.
“How do families like that lose money? It’s not just taxes or peasant revolts. It can’t be.”
Beanie turned and stared at her. “It would take a lot more journeys up and down the stairs to answer that question.”
“Can you, though? Answer it?”
“Are you looking for gossip about Simon? I can likely scrape some up for you. He was rather a pompous ass to me. You’re not in love with him, are you? Not that it matters. On the other hand.” She paused, studying Maisie. Her expression was so serious, she was unrecognizable. “If you really want to know more about reversals of fortune, there are any number of stories written on it, I should think. But if this is towards a Talk, you tell Miss Matheson I want to be the one to present it.”
“You? Really?”
Beanie laughed, looking much more like herself.
“I told you. Shocking one’s family is all the thing.”
Georgina would certainly be shocked if she saw Maisie using stage makeup to good effect, and especially if she saw the disguised Maisie entering a secret meeting of Fascists.
Except she probably doesn’t know what Fascists are.
This time, the Lion was dismissing any effect women voting might have, as he assumed most women were too featherbrained to even find their way to the polling booths. Maisie ignored him and inched her way to Hoppel, who was having a whispered conversation in the back corner. She was so intent on her quarry, she didn’t notice his companion until she was upon them. The teapot-shaped man who had looked at Simon with such interest. His bowler hat was tipped back and a cane hung over his arm in a parody of Charlie Chaplin. Neither man noticed her.
“Your friend at the BBC really must try and control that impossible woman,” the teapot-shaped man said in a gravelly voice. “She is making every attempt to see Labour win the election. I am convinced it’s the fault of the BBC, and that ghastly Manchester Guardian drivel, that trade unions are allowed to thrive. Total disaster for business—we’ll all be paupers if this carries on. Appalling state, might as well be living in Moscow.”
“‘Appalling’ is the only word,” Hoppel agreed. “I tell you, Grigson, plenty of men are willing to work for whatever they’re offered, but then those damn unions give them notions. And these book clubs! That’s the sort of thing that makes a workingman think he’s better than he is. More of that dreadful woman’s influence. The sooner we see the back of her, the better.”
“Another who thinks she’s better than she is,” Grigson said with a disparaging sniff. “But here’s good news. I have purchased a newspaper and think I have found the man to run it. Might have a bit of a time finding a few more sound fellows to write for it, but I think we’ll manage.”
“I know some writers,” Maisie burst in. Good spies listened, yes, but better ones seized opportunities.
Both men turned to look at her, surprised. Grigson laughed in what he clearly intended to be a fatherly manner. It grated on Maisie like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“Do you now? And I suppose these ‘writers’ are in fact brothers or cousins in need of a good job?”
“Well, perhaps,” she said, trying to speak in Lola’s accent. “But truly, they are very talented and eager.”
“Ah, that’s very nice too,” Grigson said. “I tell you what, dear. Take my card, and if you’d like to have these writers drop through their stuff to me, I’ll have a look at it.”
“That’s very kind of you, sir. Thank you so much.”
“Not at all, not at all. But, ah, I say, dear, have the boys just leave off envelopes addressed to me and not saying anything about what it’s regarding, all right? You can manage that, can’t you?”
“Certainly, sir. Thank you, sir.”
She had a feeling they were the sort of idiots who liked to see a girl so elated by a nothing sort of promise, there was a skip in her step as she walked away. She skipped, they laughed, and she smirked. Then the old thought floated through her contempt, the question, wondering if she had in fact told the truth, and Edwin Musgrave had provided her with brothers and cousins.
On the tram, she shook off those thoughts and looked at the card. The fist inside sucked all the breath from her body. Arthur Grigson. A company director. At Nestlé.
She should have been flabbergasted. But she wasn’t.